


Such Innocence Again

by DoctorSyntax



Category: Blackadder, Jeeves & Wooster
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorSyntax/pseuds/DoctorSyntax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Lt. George nears the end of his life, Bertie Wooster begins his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Innocence Again

**Author's Note:**

> The 1917 University Boat Race was never actually held, due to the war. The title is from Philip Larkin’s poem [MCMXIV](http://net.lib.byu.edu/english/WWI/influence/MCMXIV.html). This uses the “Jeeves Takes Charge” plot from the ITV series, not the short story.

It is Boat Race night, George remembers, as bullets rip through his body.

*

He is there; Cambridge has won this year. He is singing with someone he does not recognize -- he only knows that it’s not Melchett, though it’s the same song. This lack of recognition does not trouble him; it's Boat Race night, after all, and he's drunk enough for three men.

(Drunk enough that, between blinks, it almost seems like he is watching himself from a distance, or from behind glass.)

Someone is calling him Bertie and egging him on to pinch a policeman's helmet. They must have him confused with someone else -- maybe they know his uncle? -- but George is never one to miss out on a lark. After slurring a correction re: his Christian name, one that he suspects goes unheeded, he throws himself into the spirit of celebration.

After all, there's a war on -- Captain Blackadder is in France, facing down Fritz alone -- and George must make the most of the leave he's been granted.

*

On reflection, perhaps he should have accepted General Melchett’s offer. He could be sitting in a comfortable chair at staff headquarters right now, instead of falling to the cold, hard ground.

*

He is caught, and gropes around for a false name when the copper questions him. What was it that chap called him earlier? _Bertie_. That’s right.

"Bertram Wilberforce Wooster," he answers. The name slide out of his mouth easily, with so little thought, like it truly belongs to him. And that’s good; it makes it more believable. Sent down for pinching a policeman’s helmet while he’s meant to be fighting for king and country? He’s not sure he could face the shame, and his mother would certainly die of it. No, it’s better that they print this name.

A sleepless night in the jug turns into an exhausting morning at Bosher St. Police Court, and George has never felt happier to tumble onto soft, clean sheets.

*

He is so cold, and so very, very tired. But the fight isn't over yet; he needs to stay awake.

*

He needs to wake up. There is someone at the door.

It's General Melchett. He gapes at the general, trying to form a coherent sentence, and finds that he can't. The uniform is all wrong; Melchett looks like a member of the serving class, not an officer of the British army. Is the war over, or is this dream, brought on by too much celebrating?

The general mixes him a drink that tastes almost as bad as the trench rations, and, for a minute, George believes that his name is Bertie Wooster and the man in front of him is a valet, sent by the agency. He believes it so strongly that he hires the man on the spot.

"Thank you, sir. My name is Jeeves."

(From behind a pane of glass, George tries to tell him, "No it's not, sir, it's General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett. You know my uncle, Albert Colthurst. You have a mustache and a delicious plump-breasted pigeon called Speckled Jim and you asked me to marry you, sir." The glass stops his words as soon as he says them, and fogs from the heat of his breath.)

*

He tries to stand, and finds that he can’t.

*

Everyone here believes that his name is Bertie. He is their nephew, their friend, their cousin. (Is he anybody’s son? He can’t tell.) Sometimes he knows how to talk to them, what to say, like a muscle memory he can’t control; other times he flounders, and they call him stupid or say, "Do keep up". But that, at least, is nothing new.

(Sometimes he is Bertie and sometimes he is George. But the fog on the glass is thickening, turning darker -- like soot, or ash, or gunpowder -- and it is easier and easier to let himself be Bertie.)

He is engaged to a girl named Honoria Glossop, and despairs even though he's only just met her. He can no longer recall the exact circumstances of his engagement to General Melchett, but he remembers the feeling, the sensation of being swept up in the moment and the particular _thingness_ that came with it. His sham of an engagement to Honoria pales in comparison, and he wants no part of it.

But this Melchett -- Jeeves? -- is clean-shaven and remains a polite distance from George at all times, calls him “sir” and speaks only when spoken to. There is no hint of Melchett’s earlier infatuation with Georgina; indeed, it’s hard to tell if the man has any emotions at all. And it isn't until he effortlessly extricates George from a very tight situation that he reveals just how intelligent he is. George is struck dumb with wonder, and ignores the voice in his head -- the one that sounds like Cap -- which says that _this_ is the Melchett who should have been in charge of the war.

Instead he lavishes Melchett with compliments, and thrills for the small smile he receives in return. It’s a ghost of the favor Melchett extended to him at the regimental ball, but it’s enough to keep the memory from fading completely -- he’s forgotten so much of his life in the trenches, but he’s determined to remember that night.

*

Everything hurts. Everything, everything. _Hear the words I sing / War’s a horrid thing._

*

He and Melchett -- _Jeeves_ \-- are taking an afternoon stroll in Hyde Park.

London is sunny and bright and peaceful. Flowers are always in bloom, the trees never shed their leaves, and the weather stays temperate all year round. It never rains. Every bite of food is delicious, every snootful of b&s perfectly refreshing. The Trinity Tiddlywinkers are alive -- they have different names now, like Tuppy and Bingo and Ginger, and a new hobby, dinner roll cricket -- but it is them, as surely as George breathes.

There is no war, here, and his memories of those three years become fainter each day; everything is just as it was in 1914 -- except better. Poverty exists only in the form of nephews needing a bigger allowance; strife never takes a guise more severe than an unwanted engagement.

This is it: this is the England George has been fighting to preserve. The war must be over, then, and the Germans defeated. He hasn't seen Captain Blackadder, or Private Baldrick, or even Captain Darling; they must not have made it through the Big Push.

But he and General Melchett did, and now they can live, really _live_ , in the country they would have died for.

*

Lieutenant the Honourable George Colthurst St. Barleigh closes his eyes, and passes on.

*

Bertram Wilberforce Wooster blinks, and lives.  



End file.
